1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat-assisted magnetic recording head including a plasmon generator for use in heat-assisted magnetic recording where a magnetic recording medium is irradiated with near-field light to lower the coercivity of the magnetic recording medium for data writing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, magnetic recording devices such as magnetic disk drives have been improved in recording density, and thin-film magnetic heads and magnetic recording media of improved performance have been demanded accordingly. Among the thin-film magnetic heads, a composite thin-film magnetic head has been used widely. The composite thin-film magnetic head has such a structure that a read head including a magnetoresistive element (hereinafter, also referred to as MR element) intended for reading and a write head including an induction-type electromagnetic transducer intended for writing are stacked on a substrate. In a magnetic disk drive, the thin-film magnetic head is mounted on a slider that flies slightly above the surface of the magnetic recording medium.
Magnetic recording media are discrete media each made of an aggregate of magnetic fine particles, each magnetic fine particle forming a single-domain structure. A single recording bit of a magnetic recording medium is composed of a plurality of magnetic fine particles. For improved recording density, it is necessary to reduce asperities at the borders between adjoining recording bits. To achieve this, the magnetic fine particles must be made smaller. However, making the magnetic fine particles smaller causes the problem that the thermal stability of magnetization of the magnetic fine particles decreases with decreasing volume of the magnetic fine particles. To solve this problem, it is effective to increase the anisotropic energy of the magnetic fine particles. However, increasing the anisotropic energy of the magnetic fine particles leads to an increase in coercivity of the magnetic recording medium, and this makes it difficult to perform data writing with existing magnetic heads.
To solve the foregoing problems, there has been proposed a technique so-called heat-assisted magnetic recording. This technique uses a magnetic recording medium having high coercivity. When writing data, a magnetic field and heat are simultaneously applied to the area of the magnetic recording medium where to write data, so that the area rises in temperature and drops in coercivity for data writing. Hereinafter, a magnetic head for use in heat-assisted magnetic recording will be referred to as a heat-assisted magnetic recording head.
In heat-assisted magnetic recording, near-field light is typically used as a means for applying heat to the magnetic recording medium. A commonly known method for generating near-field light is to use a near-field optical probe or so-called plasmon antenna, which is a piece of metal that generates near-field light from plasmons excited by irradiation with light.
However, the plasmon antenna which generates near-field light by direct irradiation with light is known to exhibit very low efficiency of transformation of the applied light into near-field light. The energy of the light applied to the plasmon antenna is mostly reflected off the surface of the plasmon antenna, or transformed into thermal energy and absorbed by the plasmon antenna. The plasmon antenna is small in volume since the size of the plasmon antenna is set to be smaller than or equal to the wavelength of the light. The plasmon antenna therefore shows a significant increase in temperature when it absorbes the thermal energy.
Such a temperature increase makes the plasmon antenna expand in volume and protrude from a medium facing surface, which is the surface of the heat-assisted magnetic recording head to face the magnetic recording medium. This causes an end of the read head located in the medium facing surface to get farther from the magnetic recording medium, thereby causing the problem that a servo signal cannot be read during write operations.
There has been known a technique in which a dielectric and a metal are arranged to face each other with a predetermined gap therebetween, and surface plasmons are excited on the metal by utilizing evanescent light that results from the total reflection of the light propagated through the dielectric at the surface of the dielectric. As a related technique, U.S. Pat. No. 7,454,095 discloses a technique in which a metal waveguide and a dielectric waveguide are arranged to face each other with a predetermined gap therebetween, and the metal waveguide is coupled with the dielectric waveguide in a surface plasmon mode. It is then conceivable to establish coupling between the light propagated through the waveguide and a plasmon generator, a piece of metal, in a surface plasmon mode through a buffer part so that surface plasmons are excited on the plasmon generator, instead of directly irradiating the plasmon generator with the light. According to such a technique, it is possible to transform the light propagated through the waveguide into near-field light with high efficiency. Since the plasmon generator is not directly irradiated with the light propagated through the waveguide, it is also possible to prevent the plasmon generator from excessively increasing in temperature.
In heat-assisted magnetic recording, it is required that intense near-field light be generated from the plasmon generator in order to heat the magnetic recording medium with the near-field light. The above-described technique by itself is not sufficient for that purpose.
For heat-assisted magnetic recording, it is also desired that the position of occurrence of the write magnetic field and the position of occurrence of the near-field light be located as close as possible in the medium facing surface. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/139818 discloses a magnetic head in which a near-field light generating part that generates near-field light when irradiated with laser light and an end of a main magnetic pole layer are arranged to be laid over each other directly or with a dielectric layer therebetween in the medium facing surface. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/168220 discloses a magnetic head in which at least a part of a main magnetic pole is interposed between first and second near-field light generating parts each of which generates near-field light when irradiated with laser light.
According to the magnetic heads disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/139818 and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/168220, it is possible that the position of occurrence of the write magnetic field and the position of occurrence of the near-field light are located close to each other. Nevertheless, the direct irradiation of the near-field light generating part with the light precludes efficient transformation of the light into the near-field light.
In the case where a heat-assisted magnetic recording head employs such a configuration that the light propagated through the waveguide is coupled with the plasmon generator in a surface plasmon mode through a buffer part, and the position of occurrence of the write magnetic field and the position of occurrence of the near-field light are located close to each other, there arises the following problem. That is, in such a case, both the waveguide and the magnetic pole need to be located near the plasmon generator. It follows that the magnetic pole is located near the waveguide. The magnetic pole is typically made of a magnetic metal material. The presence of such a magnetic pole near the waveguide produces the problem that part of the light propagated through the waveguide can be absorbed by the magnetic pole and the use efficiency of the light propagated through the waveguide thereby decreases.